By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Regular watchers of question time would know that Bob Katter can sometimes come across a little less than coherent.
Bob Katter in parliament earlier this year.Credit: James Brickwood
Now CBD maintains that Katter, at 79 our oldest sitting MP, thereby earning the title “Father of the House”, has earned the right to the occasional meandering anecdote.
But there was nothing rambling about a series of questions the North Queenslander put to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke in writing last week about Chinese involvement in the Pacific.
Except for one question, where Katter asked whether the minister was “concerned about the growing presence of the Republic of China in our neighbouring countries, particularly in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands”.
We’re sure Katter meant the People’s Republic of China, and not the Republic of China, the official name for Taiwan. Nomenclature is a sensitive thing in that part of the world. The man in the hat fessed up when contacted by CBD on Tuesday.
“Good point! That’s a bad mistake on my part!” he said, before embarking one of those long anecdotes about how locals in Cape York kept raising their fears about the risks of a Chinese invasion with their local MP.
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but it mightn’t sound ridiculous if you live on the tip of Cape York!” Katter said. There was more, about “whitefellas from Sydney” selling off Northern Australia to “the Chinese”, before Bob decided we’d all had enough for now.
PENN PAYS A VISIT
Down at Visit Victoria, the state’s visitor marketing agency which is fond of shelling out the cash to lure major events, former Telstra boss Andy Penn AO has replaced lawyer Janet Whiting AM as chair.
Yes, yes, an announcement appeared on the premier’s website late last month, but the news has still come as a surprise to some stakeholders and journalists who weren’t sent it and didn’t see it.
Former Telstra chief executive Andy Penn gets into the spirit of things with wife Kallie Blauhorn at Melbourne Fashion Week.
The well-regarded Penn has even chaired his first board meeting – but at this point he’s keeping schtum on his new gig.
Penn, a member of Council of Trustees at the National Gallery of Victoria, is eminently qualified to helm Visit Victoria, if fronting up to Melbourne events is the go. CBD once spotted him “looking natty in a modern-cut grey suit” at Formula 1 influencers-meet-revheads party Glamour on the Grid, ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.
In March, in the front row of Melbourne Fashion Festival – flanked by wife Kallie Blauhorn, a festival board member – we were openly admiring of Penn’s open-necked white shirt, man bag, open-toed sandals, painted toenails, a pearl bracelet and camel-coloured flares.
The well-regarded Whiting had spent eight years on the board, the last five as chair, and her term had come to an end. She has left the board but remains chair of the National Gallery of Victoria.
Other Visit Victoria board members are ex-Crown chief executive Peter Crinis and board director Deborah Beale AM. And Eddie McGuire AM was just reappointed to another term, so equilibrium is restored.
ALL FOR A CAUSE
Gabrielle Williams MP with her son Ruairí.Credit: Joe Armao
State government minister Gabrielle Williams has gone where few women venture voluntarily and shaved her hair off at Parliament House on Tuesday.
It started as a crazy thought bubble in the car when the MP for Dandenong was driving her friend Eden Foster, member for Mulgrave, to the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre for her cancer treatment.
Gabrielle Williams MP.Credit: Joe Armao
“It started out as a joke and developed into an idea,” said Williams, the minister for consumer affairs, government services and public and active transport.
“It was done in solidarity with Eden and in time for her return to the parliament.
Together, they have raised $27,000 for the Cancer Council.
The minister professed herself pleased with her new look.
“It probably best described as a buzz cut – a bit Sinead O’Connor.”
VERGING ON HERETICAL
On Monday, Australia met Zali Burrows.
The colourful criminal solicitor, known for representing the likes of bikie gangs and jailed fraudster Salim Mehajer, told the Federal Court that her latest client, Bruce Lehrmann’s only shot at making money was by “going on OnlyFans, or something silly like that”.
Beyond the headline-bait reference to the adult website, Burrows described her client, who is seeking to appeal a defamation decision that found to the civil standard that he raped his then-colleague Brittany Higgins, as “the most hated man in Australia”.
We’ve heard that before. It was how Burrows described Lehrmann to this column, when contacted about her abrupt withdrawal from a conference run by men’s rights activist Bettina Arndt.
Burrows, neither defamation specialist nor barrister, is the only lawyer working on Lehrmann’s team for the appeal. Nevertheless, she is persistent.
In 2011, Sydney law firm Macpherson Kelley Lawyers acted for Burrows in a personal dispute. She would later sue the firm for professional negligence, claiming her solicitor failed to secure $12,239.83 ordered in her favour. When Burrows’ claim failed in 2020, the District Court ordered her to pay the firm $130,000 in costs. She unsuccessfully tried to appeal that decision in the NSW Court of Appeal. She then sought special leave to appeal to the High Court, also without success.
When the firm sought a bankruptcy order against Burrows, her attempts to have it thrown out were rejected by the Federal Court last year.
But the matter returned to the District Court in March (it’s been considered by seven different judges now) when Burrows tried to have the costs order thrown out, arguing that it was obtained by fraud or bad faith.
In dismissing the proceedings, District Court Judge Robert Weber, SC, described some of Burrows’ submissions as “verging on heretical”, because she argued for him not to follow binding decisions of the Court of Appeal.
“Her case is, therefore, doomed to fail,” his honour said.
Hardly a ringing endorsement. Lehrmann is probably hoping for better.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.